Regrown

How to Grow Fruit, Herbs and Vegetables from Kitchen Scraps

      

With the current passion for all things RE, be it cycled, loved or invented, REgrown is a great title. This is a fun and informative book especially for those with little or no knowledge of horticulture and those with a limited budget and not much space.

The book starts with an introduction and a guide to the key elements for success, covering the usual suspects of light, temperature, soil, containers and water. There are two pieces of advice, I take away, the first is that when growing many of these plants you need to change the water daily, draining and replenishing it and making sure the plants neither dry out or become waterlogged. Now I know why I have always failed when trying to grow Avocados from Pips, the slimy unchanged water!

The second piece of advice is also to do with cleanliness and using a sterile soil to help prevent biological and fungal infections during the growing process.

You can create your own sterile soil by ‘cooking’ the soil on a baking tray for 30 minutes at 200 degrees C

 Instructions are written in much the same way as a recipe book with easy to follow step-by-step instructions and tips. Speedy growers, medium speed growers and slow growers all feature. If you are going to do any of these projects with your children start with the speedy growers such as Spring Onions, Bean Sprouts, Garlic, Mint, Pak Choi and Celery. Medium growers include the likes of Fennel, Coriander, Carrots and lemon grass.

The slow growers include Pineapples, Avocados Ginger and of all things Mushrooms. A perfect book to buy and use now for a quick start during in the growing season.

For those curious to know how ‘Two Dirty Boys’ came about it was a chance meeting in 2010 on Halloween night.

They have allotments in Bow, East London where together they grow ingredients to make pickles, pies, teas, wines and cocktails and take delight in germination, propagation and fermentation. Follow them on instagram @twodirtyboys.

Paul Anderton & Robin Daly (Hardie Grant, £16.99) Photography: Kim Lightbody